Essay on Solving HealthCare’s eMail Security Problem

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a set of national standards created for the protection of health information; it is also known as a “Privacy Rule”. This rule was employed in 1996 by the US Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to address the use and disclosure of an individual’s health information as well as the standards for the individual’s privacy rights to understand and control the manner in which their information is used.

HIPAA also assures continued improvement in the efficacy of electronic information system each year. These are accomplished by the rules of Title II: the Privacy Rule, the Transactions and Code Sets Rule, the Security Rule, the Unique Identifiers Rule, and the Enforcement Rule. (Jeffries, n.d)

Information security and HIPAA policies should cover all the necessary access and control measures needed to secure information system resources and deter, shield and protect the organization from security breaches. The scenario demonstrates that the organizations overall information security posture is poor. The HIPAA, remote access and retention policies within the information management division need to be addressed due to the healthcare organizations legal obligation to ensure the privacy of protected information. Security safeguards can be addressed through vigilance and the implementation logical and administrative access controls. Properly administered HIPAA Privacy and remote access policies would not only help alleviate but quickly identify 3 undocumented accounts with global remote access. HIPAA security standards require any user with access to protected health information have a documented need to

Correct Answer: fails to protect employees in most situations involving e-mail monitoring by public and private employers.

Under the HIPAA Security Rule, health care providers are required to conduct an accurate and thorough analysis of the potential risks and vulnerabilities. Protecting the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy of data in health care is very important. For a risk analysis, health care providers would prioritize risks based on the severity of the impact that it would cause their patients and practices (Security Risk Analysis TipSheet, 2014). In addition, identifying the potential threats to patient privacy and security (Security Risk Analysis TipSheet, 2014). A risk analysis process would include determining the likelihood and impact of potential risk to electronic protected health information, implementing security measures to

The most common form of an invasion, to employee privacy rights is email. With the massive use of computers, email has become the biggest communication tool of choice in the workplace. The concern of employers has grown tremendously with the use of email in the workplace. Employers' concern is that, employees can waste time by sending and receiving email for personal use, and they may provide easy access for hackers to entry their computer system. Employers can monitor an employee computer activity to ensure productivity in the workplace. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse (2006) states, "Unfortunately, if an employee uses a company computer for email use, the employee employer has the right to review the contents of his or her email."

If Kaiser Permanente did not take steps to quickly resolve the issues within the group and organization they might face a HIPAA violation. HIPAA Violators can be sentenced for up to 10 years in prison and fined up to $250,000 in criminal penalties for failure to comply. In addition, civil penalties can be imposed that include $100 per violation and up to $25,000 per person, per year for each violation (DMA.org, 2002).

As an example I would like to describe my experience working at a relatively small fruit import company. The management of this firm gets information, makes orders, and carries almost all negotiations via the e-mail. "To minimize the risk of any disclosure or loss of confidential data, it is important to understand where the risks are, and implement office management practices and appropriate technology to ensure all of your data remains confidential and secure," advises article IDS: Classification (2002, December4). The potential loss or disclosure of information could occur through various ways: vulnerabilities of operation systems (mostly Microsoft products), vulnerabilities of e-mail software, viruses and malicious software, and weak passwords. It is relatively easy to protect electronic information in this case, but it does take some time and effort, which could be difficult for managers, who do not have an expertise in computers.

In the current era of digitization, with all the data being converted from paper to electronic records, even the healthcare industry has become so dependent on technology. As hospitals are adopting electronic means for data storage, medical results, transactions and billing, utmost care is to be taken to protect a patient’s personal privacy by protecting their electronic health records, which is only possible by enhancing the security and privacy of the hospital’s network. This paper proposes certain security mechanisms for a more controlled and safer access to the healthcare provider’s network, thus being aware of every device trying to access the network and making sure only authorized devices are able to connect, with the help of measures such as, intrusion detection systems to continuously monitor the network, firewalls to ensure endpoint devices comply with security policies and biometrics for identity based network access control.

Privacy and confidentiality are basic rights in our society. Safeguarding those rights, with respect to an individual’s personal health information, is our ethical and legal obligation as health care providers. Doing so in today’s health care environment is increasingly challenging (OJIN, 2005).

In today’s age of healthcare, health informatic innovations such as the health information exchange have allowed electronically available healthcare data, such as clinical, administrative, and financial information, to be shared within healthcare systems, hospital networks, and other healthcare settings. As organizations begin to share sensitive information across political, geographical, and institutional boundaries, there is a constant risk of patient data being compromised. Therefore, close attention must be given to confronting the specific problems resulting in an increase in healthcare data breaches, as well as determining the appropriate solutions in order for healthcare organizations to protect sensitive patient data.

Information security and privacy is occupying a most important role in the healthcare territory in order to deliver protected information process to their patients (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). As healthcare department is the organization with vast data and essential information the hospitals has to keep a useful information security technique in their enterprise process (Mishra et al., 2011). Information security is one such phase in the healthcare sphere which is extremely problematic to describe and evaluate even to the individuals who are working on the process. In the healthcare organization, information is of many types which required for the work and even the security is a main control for almost all the practices which are transmitted out in the healthcare field (Appari, & Johnson, 2010). Hospitals, in specific, have been instructed to create a new set of security specialists to protect healthcare data tools techniques upon which exists may rely. Healthcare data is very critical for patients because it is very confidential records. If a medical apparatus is filled with a computer virus it can even exemplify a possibility to patients ' lives. Hence, hospitals should design alertness of the risk, to defend against concerns to healthcare databanks and be concerned about the high risk of infected computers or medical tools being connected to their networks (Mishra et al., 2011).

The rapid changes in technology over the past few decades has left the healthcare industry ill-prepared to operate in today’s environment. Most substantial protections of sensitive consumer information has come as a result of federal regulation, most notably in 1996 with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and 2009 as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Protection of information in the healthcare industry has lagged behind all other industries, perhaps because the records aren’t financial in nature or sensitive government information. Implementing simple steps for many organizations may be enough to limit the vast majority of breaches, although a layered, comprehensive security approach should be the ultimate goal for companies.

Informatics is a term used to describe the entirety of obtaining and storing a patient’s healthcare information. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is an act that provides privacy and security amongst a patient’s medical and health information. Sounds simple, right? Well, one of the nurse’s many roles is to ensure confidentiality of the patient. HIPAA aids in the use of electronic records distributed for collaborative and violations of confidentiality in healthcare under control.

ESAA’s standards committee started a project to update EASs to comply with changes and additions to IFRSs. It is expected